S6, Ep 37: Streamer Secrets and Dry Fly Dreams with East Tennessee's Ellis Ward
Join host Marvin Cash as he casts into the heart of East Tennessee's fishing scene with local guide Ellis Ward on The Articulate Fly. As spring rains swell the streams, Marvin and Ellis discuss the thrill of dry fly action on the horizon. With the Watauga River's caddis hatch coming soon and gusty forecasts challenging anglers, Ellis shares his on-the-water experiences and the anticipation of aquatic acrobatics from eager trout.
Despite the challenging conditions, Ellis remains optimistic, offering wisdom on streamer strategies during low water periods and the importance of confidence in your pattern choice. He emphasizes the power of a well-placed cast and the mental game of anticipating the strike, blending art with technique to entice wary brown trout from their lairs.
As more anglers and recreationalists flock to the rivers with warmer weather, Ellis provides invaluable advice on adapting to increased fishing pressure. He suggests leaning into your go-to flies, exploring under-fished waters and even downsizing to more subtle presentations to outsmart educated fish.
Ready to elevate your game or book a transformative day on the water with Ellis? Find out how to connect and uncover the secrets to East Tennessee's vibrant fishing opportunities. So grab your gear, heed the call of the hatch and let the river's rhythms guide you to your next unforgettable catch.
Tight lines await on the other side of the storm—don't miss out on the action.
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Speaker:
Marvin: Hey folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of the Articulate Fly.
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Marvin: We're back with another East Tennessee Fishing Report with Ellis Ward. Ellis, how are you?
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Ellis: I am doing well, Marv. How are you?
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Marvin: As always, just trying to stay out of trouble. And, you know,
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Marvin: as I always do, getting ready for these things, I looked at your weather.
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Marvin: And, I mean, you're going to get a kind of a gully washer of rain,
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Marvin: but then you're going to have some really nice temperatures,
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Marvin: like 70s, maybe bumping into the 80s in the next 10 days or so.
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Marvin: So I imagine dry fly action is right around the corner.
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Ellis: Yeah, I feel like my doing well, Marv, how are you, was a little more effusive than normal.
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Ellis: Been out on the lower Watauga, well, generally a few days a week anyhow,
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Ellis: but really just with my eye.
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Ellis: Had a great day fishing last week with a good friend of mine.
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Ellis: Um he caught a couple nice fish and
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Ellis: i i was like i was a little cranky i
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Ellis: was kind of like i wasn't it was
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Ellis: kind of like not a good day of fishing for me because i was really excited to
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Ellis: start seeing more caddis movement and just
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Ellis: because it was kind of cold windy um water
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Ellis: was off color and still super early so
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Ellis: that has in the last four or five days started and really the last two or three
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Ellis: it's it's very much um heading towards peak it'll get thrown a little bit,
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Ellis: uh we have 45 mile an hour gusts almost all day forecasted for tomorrow and
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Ellis: And kind of similar, I'm sure, Friday, along with some rain.
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Ellis: So I will still be out, and we will see what happens.
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Ellis: But bugs typically, it's an interesting one because it's actually low pressure.
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Ellis: So I will have to report back on that.
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Ellis: It's actually going to be in the 70s tomorrow. But yeah, we're...
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Ellis: We're there, man. For anyone listening, a couple days, we're there.
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Marvin: Yeah, the important thing is to remember to cast under the wind.
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Ellis: Yeah, exactly. With a 5-weight and 10-foot leader, just give that nice little
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Ellis: extra double haul on the way in, and you'll sink right under there.
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Marvin: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And of course, I know you're, you know,
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Marvin: while you're excited for dry flies, you know, your heart is, uh, fishing streamers.
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Marvin: I would imagine your streamer bites probably been pretty good too.
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Ellis: Yeah. Um,
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Ellis: You know, it just goes as the streamer light does and somewhat fits and starts.
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Ellis: So the last couple of weeks, it's been low water on both rivers,
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Ellis: which, you know, I dedicated so much time to figuring out how to make it viable
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Ellis: to be streamer fishing in all conditions on both rivers.
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Ellis: And what it comes down to is it's it's growing to spots which isn't necessarily
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Ellis: a bad thing but um it's a little more focused and,
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Ellis: i don't know it takes you know when you have big water and you're just cruising
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Ellis: along and you know maybe maybe the water's a little off and you get some intermittent
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Ellis: hatches because the hatch activity is also,
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Ellis: if you think about the shape of the river and what dry fly shelves are and tail
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Ellis: outs and all that, when it's really low water,
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Ellis: things become very defined.
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Ellis: So the fishing...
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Ellis: Can be streamer fish and dry fluffing can be
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Ellis: great and and even nymphing in those conditions it's
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Ellis: like well they're obviously not in that four inches
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Ellis: of water right there maybe in that six
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Ellis: inches of water and you know
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Ellis: this plunge pool over here with with some
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Ellis: juicy log jams behind it's the place that we're going to be fishing so um yeah
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Ellis: like you said with the rain coming in we've had a couple pushes that has kept
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Ellis: the major tributary of uh the watauga the doe river.
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Ellis: Uh pushing some good water but you know
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Ellis: i i do love dry fly fishing and um i
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Ellis: put a post up a few weeks ago it's just i don't
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Ellis: know if it's because there's just there's so
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Ellis: many people that put up like macro pictures
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Ellis: of flies that just look so
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Ellis: incredible um or if
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Ellis: it's some sort of differentiating you know not not everyone does what i do but
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Ellis: not everyone does what i do with the dry fly stuff as well and uh it's that
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Ellis: is one the caddis hatch in particular and a few other their bugs and sort of
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Ellis: my knowledge of these seasons.
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Ellis: And if it were up to me, I'm not going to say 50-50.
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Ellis: I'd probably like 60-40, 70-30 streamer fishing.
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Ellis: But I like to stop and hit risers and have developed a pretty good map of where
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Ellis: they're going to be and what they're going to be over the years.
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Marvin: There you go. I've got a question for you, too, because as it warms up,
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Marvin: that also means more people are going to be on the water.
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Marvin: You've got the tubers, the rafters, and more fishermen.
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Marvin: Brenner wanted to get your thoughts on pattern suggestions when trouts start
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Marvin: to get more heavily pressured.
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Ellis: Yeah, so I would say that there's so many cliches that are about to come out of my face.
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Ellis: What I think you should focus on the most when things, I don't know,
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Ellis: feel not great is whatever your confidence pattern is.
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Ellis: And that's a reason why I have people fishing the white dungeon.
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Ellis: And if they can get the strip cadence down and understand the casting,
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Ellis: the drunken disorderly and certain other subset of people, the swim bug.
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Ellis: Something that you are looking at.
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Ellis: That's making your brain go, wow, that's about to get eaten.
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Ellis: That's about to get eaten.
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Ellis: That's every single time you're stripping and killing and stripping and killing,
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Ellis: you're just, you're ready for it to get eaten because that gives you an extra
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Ellis: two or three feet on your ass.
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Ellis: And within that two or three feet, you're just focused.
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Ellis: Those two or three feet aren't just farther, they're more accurate. it
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Ellis: they're getting next to that log jam not four feet from it they're getting eight
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Ellis: inches from it and so i don't want to say it's totally pattern agnostic um but
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Ellis: but man i i think that external,
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Ellis: factors like weather barometric pressure um you know what what the seasonality
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Ellis: the river what type of bass move it around,
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Ellis: cloud cover clarity, water column all that stuff is probably going to play in a little more,
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Ellis: but you know that said and,
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Ellis: Over the summer when we're getting, you know, 10, 15, 20 boats,
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Ellis: just within a section on the tailwater, I mean, 40 boats per river or more,
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Ellis: I'm fishing, you know, 2 to 10.
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Ellis: Getting that last light window and starting as late as possible.
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Ellis: And, man, fishing low water around a bunch of boats under blue skies.
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Ellis: You take the boats away it's still going to be a
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Ellis: tough sell so a couple other
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Ellis: things just to to add on to that just
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Ellis: when you're thinking about pattern and and if what you are doing is not working
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Ellis: um and i'll throw out one somewhat counterintuitive but um i don't know some
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Ellis: something to change things up,
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Ellis: going higher in the water column and something with a more pronounced kill.
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Ellis: And that's really where my swim
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Ellis: bug came into play, trying to get over log jams and weed beds and stuff.
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Ellis: And it's step cousin, twice removed to the drunk.
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Ellis: Something with neutral buoyancy or a lot of friction in the head that's going
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Ellis: to give you that side-to-side dog walk.
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Ellis: And it's going to sit a little higher in the water column because brown trout
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Ellis: is, you know, my experience, observations, I have not had the opportunity to speak to one.
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Ellis: But they're they're they're coming from below and
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Ellis: they're eating from the belly and when they're being wary
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Ellis: they're not chasing the thing out they're
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Ellis: not stalking it they're they may stalk it from a distance and wait for their
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Ellis: opportunity and then they're going to come and absolutely smash it you'll get
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Ellis: the occasional you know come come from behind kind of like a musky follow but
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Ellis: But throughout that process, you need to be able to control your fly.
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Ellis: And we talked about this, you know, months ago with trying to convert those
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Ellis: follows in eights. And, you know, general rule is shorter and faster.
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Ellis: So a fly that you can get more of those different triggers, be it an up and
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Ellis: down, be it a side to side, be it stop, speed.
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Ellis: So some of the hair bugs provide.
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Ellis: All of those things, they require more from the angler, but their ceiling is much higher.
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Ellis: And then last complete cliche is don't be afraid to go super small.
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Ellis: And it's way less exciting. And for me, honestly, it takes away a lot of the
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Ellis: visual fun of streamer fishing, especially as a tire.
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Ellis: Seeing the dynamics of something that I've constructed. constructed um but yeah
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Ellis: going going real small like a clouser or you know having fun doing like a little
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Ellis: micro game changer two-handed that stuff across places that people aren't really pressuring.
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Ellis: Um i've seen some some large solution and had some heartbreaks on on really tough days,
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Ellis: just saying you know what i've been fishing
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Ellis: the right side so much and i know there's good fish issue over there
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Ellis: but whatever this day has
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Ellis: sucked let's go left i fished
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Ellis: that one like last year and i
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Ellis: watched someone pull out a complete stud that surprised
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Ellis: both of us didn't make it in the boat so um
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Ellis: yeah once once things start getting pressured it's really you you gotta go go
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Ellis: with what you're most confident in on the end of your rod and then you know
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Ellis: start getting sporty with the places that you're fishing well.
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Marvin: There you go and you know folks we love questions on the articulate fly you
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Marvin: can email them to us or dm us on social media whatever's easiest for you and
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Marvin: if we use your question i will send you some articulate fly swag and we're going
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Marvin: to draw for some cool stuff from ellis at the end of the season and ellis i have to ask you,
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Marvin: was the Easter Bunny able to pick up those pastel colored bucktails?
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Ellis: He picked up a few. There's still a bunch left. I think between the handful
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Ellis: of releases and a couple other folk putting tails out, there's not a craze in demand.
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Ellis: I also didn't push him too hard, but still got some good tails left.
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Ellis: Left in, I got this shaggy gray that I always think every color is just bananas.
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Ellis: Shaggy gray, some purples, some yellows, but, you know, typical natural range.
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Ellis: But still a bunch of grade threes and fours, and I think maybe even a one or
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Ellis: two sporting around in there.
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Marvin: Yeah, and also, too, we know spring break, so people are distracted.
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Marvin: So, you know, folks, remember, we've got two great opportunities in our Patreon
Speaker:
Marvin: community on the Articulate Fly.
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Marvin: One of them will get you a discount on some of Ellis' bucktails,
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Marvin: but there's another one where you get a $100 per year credit off a trip with Ellis.
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Marvin: And Ellis, before I let you hop, I got you again with the pun.
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Marvin: Why don't you let folks know where they can find you, talk fishing,
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Marvin: and get on your guide calendar?
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Ellis: Yeah, you can follow along with a portion of the flies that I tie and fish on
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Ellis: Instagram at Ellis Ward Guides.
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Ellis: And my website is EllisWardFlies.com.
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Ellis: Best way to book a trip and fastest way to connect with me is my cell phone.
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Ellis: Text or call at 513-543-0019. nine.
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Marvin: Well, there you go. Well, listen, folks, we've got some great weather coming
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Marvin: on the other side of the system.
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Marvin: You owe it to yourself to get out there and catch a few tight lines,
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Marvin: everybody tight lines, Ellis.
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Ellis: Appreciate it, Mark.
Ellis Ward
Guide | Fly Tier
I am a full time, year round fishing guide in East Tennessee, based out of Johnson City. I also design and tie flies from midges to musky, process a thousand or so bucktails every season, teach at East Tennessee State University, and raise my daughter.
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